State Department told not to contact Afghan watchdog

The government's watchdog for Afghanistan has released a timeline and emails showing how it repeatedly asked State for information on the collapse of the Afghan military, but never got it in an ongoing dispute with the State Department.

John Sopko, who runs the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, said last week that two Biden administration agencies, the State Department and USAID, told their staff not to communicate with SIGAR, which is responsible for tracking waste and corruption.

State Department spokeswoman Ned Price responded by saying SIGAR did not request input from the State Department when drafting a May report on the military's collapse, nor did they afford us an opportunity to review the draft before it was finalized, as had been a regular process for other reports. On Wednesday, SIGAR said that Price's statement, as recorded in the State Department's publicly posted transcript, is not accurate. SIGAR repeatedly sought the participation of the State Department in the study, from the beginning, according to the watchdog, which released a series of emails between SIGAR and State to support its assertion. SIGAR sent a copy of the report to the State Department and requested comments before issuing the report. The State Department wouldn't say anything. On October 1, 2021, SIGAR said that it had notified the Defense Department, State and USAID of five reviews it was launching at the direction of Congress, and identified what each review was intended to evaluate.

In February, SIGAR said it contacted a senior State Department employee to arrange an interview to obtain information, but was informed that the department s legal counsel had told personnel not to participate in any SIGAR interviews until further notice. SIGAR submitted a draft of the Afghan military report to State for comment on April 20. The report was published in May.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Last week, Sopko wrote that State and USAID have always been complied with requests for information from SIGAR, which was established in 2008, and that no other administration had ever questioned SIGAR's jurisdiction. This long track record of cooperation seems to have ended abruptly, he said. The agency officials have taken a premeditated position of obstruction. Three congressional officials and a government official familiar with the process said that the information from State and USAID dried up months ago. Biden administration officials argued that the U.S. is no longer involved in reconstruction in Afghanistan, so SIGAR is outside the inspector general's jurisdiction, according to officials familiar with the process.